Turkish phonology

Turkish phonology
The phonology of Turkish deals with current phonology and phonetics, particularly of Istanbul Turkish. A notable feature of the phonology of Turkish is a system of vowel harmony that causes vowels in most words to be either front or back and either rounded or unrounded. Velar stop consonants have palatal allophones before front vowels.
Consonants
In native Turkic words, the velar consonants are palatalized to (similar to Russian) when adjacent to the front vowels . Similarly, the consonant is realized as a clear or light next to front vowels (including word finally), and as a velarized next to the central and back vowels . These alternations are not indicated orthographically: the same letters and are used for both pronunciations. In foreign borrowings and proper nouns, however, these distinct realizations of are contrastive. In particular, and clear are sometimes found in conjunction with the vowels and . This pronunciation can be indicated by adding a circumflex accent over the vowel: e.g. ('infidel'), ('condemned'), ('necessary'), although the use of this diacritic has become increasingly archaic. An example of a minimal pair is ('snow') vs. (with palatalized ) ('profit').
In addition, there is a debatable phoneme, called ('soft g') and written , which only occurs after a vowel. It is sometimes transcribed or . Between back vowels, it may be silent or sound like a bilabial glide. Between front vowels, it is either silent or realized as , depending on the preceding and following vowels. When not between vowels (that is, word finally and before a consonant), it is generally realized as vowel length, lengthening the preceding vowel, or as a slight if preceded by a front vowel. According to , who transcribe this sound as :
Word-finally and preconsonantally, it lengthens the preceding vowel.
Between front vowels it is an approximant, either front-velar or palatal .
Otherwise, intervocalic is phonetically zero (deleted). Before the loss of this sound, Turkish did not allow vowel sequences in native words, and today the letter serves largely to indicate vowel length and vowel sequences where once occurred.
The phoneme only occurs in loanwords.
is an allophone of before back vowels in many dialects in eastern and southeastern Turkey, including Hatay dialect.
Phonetic notes:
are bilabial, whereas vary between bilabial and labiodental.
Some speakers realize as bilabial when it occurs before the rounded vowels as well as (although to a lesser extent) word-finally after those rounded vowels. In other environments, it is labiodental .
The main allophone of is a voiced labiodental fricative . Between two vowels (with at least one of them, usually the following one, being rounded), it is realized as a voiced bilabial approximant , whereas before or after a rounded vowel (but not between vowels), it is realized as a voiced bilabial fricative . Some speakers have only one bilabial allophone.
are dental , is velarized dental , is alveolar , whereas is palatalized post-alveolar .
is frequently devoiced word-finally and before a voiceless consonant. According to one source, it is only realized as a modal tap intervocalically. Word-initially, a location is restricted from occurring in native words, the constriction at the alveolar ridge narrows sufficiently to create frication but without making full contact, ; the same happens in word-final position: (which can be mistaken for or by non-Turkish speakers).
and are often also voiceless in the same environments (word-final and before voiceless consonants).
Syllable-initial are usually aspirated.
Final may be fronted to a voiceless velar fricative . It may be fronted even further after front vowels, then tending towards a voiceless palatal fricative .
are devoiced to word- and morpheme-finally, as well as before a consonant: ('to do, to make') is pronounced . (This is reflected in the orthography, so that it is spelled ). When a vowel is added to nouns ending with postvocalic , it is lenited to (see below); this is also reflected in the orthography.
Consonant assimilation
Because of assimilation, an initial voiced consonant of a suffix is devoiced when the word it is attached to ends in a voiceless consonant. For example,
the locative of (slope) is (on the slope), but (chef) has locative ;
the diminutive of (name) is ('little name'), but ('horse') has diminutive ('little horse').
Phonotactics
Turkish phonotactics is almost completely regular. The maximal syllable structure is (C)V(C)(C). Although Turkish words can take multiple final consonants, the possibilities are limited. Multi-syllable words are syllabified to have C.CV or V.CV syllable splits, C.V split is disallowed, V.V split is only found in rare specific occurrences.
Turkish only allows complex onsets in a few recent English, French and Italian loanwords, making them CCVC(C)(C), such as and . Even in these words, the complex onsets are only pronounced as such in very careful speech. Otherwise, speakers often epenthesize a vowel after the first consonant. Although some loanwords add a written vowel in front of them to reflect this breaking of complex onsets (for example the French was borrowed as to Turkish), epenthetic vowels in loan words are not usually reflected in spelling. This differs from orthographic conventions of the early 20th century that did reflect this epenthesis.
All syllables have a nucleus
No diphthongs in the standard dialect (is always treated as a consonant)
No word-initial or (in native words)
No long vowel followed by syllable-final voiced consonant (this essentially forbids trimoraic syllables)
No complex onsets (except for the exceptions above)
No in coda (see Final-obstruent devoicing), except for some recent loanwords such as and five contrasting single-syllable words: "name" vs. "horse", "Hajj" vs. "holy cross", (city name) vs. "dog", "code" vs. "jeans", "fire" vs. "grass".
In a complex coda:
The first consonant is either a voiceless fricative, a nasal, or
The second consonant is either a voiceless plosive , or
Two adjacent plosives and fricatives must share voicing, even when not in the same syllable, but and are exempt
No word-initial geminates - in all other syllables, geminates are allowed only in the onset (hyphenation and syllabification in Turkish match except for this point; hyphenation splits the geminates)
Rural dialects regularize many of the exceptions described above.
Vowels
The vowels of the Turkish language are, in their alphabetical order . There are no phonemic diphthongs in Turkish and when two vowels are adjacent in the spelling of a word, which only occurs in some loanwords, each vowel retains its individual sound (e.g. aile , laik ). In some words, a diphthong in the donor language (e.g. the in Arabic ) is replaced by a monophthong (for the example, the in nöbet ). In some other words, the diphthong becomes a two-syllable form with a semivocalic in between.
has been variously described as close back , near-close near-back and close central with a near-close allophone that occurs in the final open syllable of a phrase.
are phonetically mid . For simplicity, this article omits the relative diacritic even in phonetic transcription.
corresponds to and in other Turkic languages. This sound merger started in the 11th century and finished in early Ottoman era. Most speakers lower to ~ before coda , so that 'somersault' is pronounced . There are a limited number of words, such as 'self' and 'both', which are pronounced with by some people and with by some others.
has been variously described as central and back , because of the vowel harmony. For simplicity, this article uses the diacriticless symbol , even in phonetic transcription. is phonologically a back vowel, because it patterns with other back vowels in harmonic processes and the alternation of adjacent consonants (see above). The vowel plays the role as the "front" analog of .
(but not ) are lowered to in environments variously described as "final open syllable of a phrase" and "word-final".
Vowel harmony
With some exceptions, native Turkish words follow a system of vowel harmony, meaning that they incorporate either exclusively back vowels or exclusively front vowels, as, for example, in the words ('they were in the dark') and ('due to their thoughtfulness'). only occur in the initial syllable. Native Turkish grammar books call the backness harmony major vowel harmony, and the combined backness and lip harmony minor vowel harmony.
The Turkish vowel system can be considered as being three-dimensional, where vowels are characterised by three features: front/back, rounded/unrounded, and high/low, resulting in eight possible combinations, each corresponding to one Turkish vowel, as shown in the table.
Vowel harmony of grammatical suffixes is realized through "a chameleon-like quality", meaning that the vowels of suffixes change to harmonize with the vowel of the preceding syllable. According to the changeable vowel, there are two patterns:
twofold: Backness is preserved, that is, appears following a front vowel and appears following a back vowel. For example, the locative suffix is -de after front vowels and -da after back vowels. The notation -de2 is shorthand for this pattern.
fourfold: Both backness and rounding are preserved. For example, the genitive suffix is -in after unrounded front vowels, -ün after rounded front vowels, -ın after unrounded back vowels, and -un after rounded back vowels. The notation -in4 can be this pattern's shorthand.
The vowel does not occur in grammatical suffixes. In the isolated case of in the verbal progressive suffix -i4yor it is immutable, breaking the vowel harmony such as in ('[he/she/it] is walking'). stuck because it derived from a former compounding "-i yorı".
Some examples illustrating the use of vowel harmony in Turkish with the copula -dir4 ('[he/she/it] is'):
('it is Turkey') – with an apostrophe because is a proper noun.
('it is the day')
('it is the door')
('it is the coat').
Compound words do not undergo vowel harmony in their constituent words as in ('today'; from , 'this', and , 'day') and ('capital'; from , 'prime', and , 'city') unless it is specifically derived that way. Vowel harmony does not usually apply to loanword roots and some invariant suffixes, such as and ('while ...-ing'). In the suffix -e2bil ('may' or 'can'), only the first vowel undergoes vowel harmony. The suffix ('belonging to ...') is mostly invariant, except in the words ('today's') ('yesterday's'), and ('because that').
There are a few native Turkish words that do not have vowel harmony such as ('mother'). In such words, suffixes harmonize with the final vowel as in ('she is a mother'). Also suffixes added to foreign borrowings and proper nouns usually harmonize their vowel with the syllable immediately preceding the suffix: ('in Amsterdam'), ('in Paris').
Consonantal effects
In most words, consonants are neutral or transparent and have no effect on vowel harmony. In borrowed vocabulary, however, back vowel harmony can be interrupted by the presence of a "front" (i.e. coronal or labial) consonant, and in rarer cases, front vowel harmony can be reversed by the presence of a "back" consonant.
For example, Arabic and French loanwords containing back vowels may nevertheless end in a clear instead of a velarized . Harmonizing suffixes added to such words contain front vowels. The table above gives some examples.
Arabic loanwords ending in usually take front-vowel suffixes if the origin is kāf, but back-vowel suffixes if the origin is qāf: e.g. ('perception' acc. from idrāk) vs. ('top' acc. from ← fawq). Loanwords ending in derived from Arabic tāʼ marbūṭah take front-vowel suffixes: e.g. ('hour' dat. from sāʿat), ('trip' dat. from siyāḥat). Words ending in derived from the Arabic feminine plural ending -āt or from devoicing of Arabic dāl take the expected back-vowel suffixes: e.g. ('literature' acc. from adabiyyāt) ('purpose', nom. and acc. from مقصد maqṣad).
Front-vowel suffixes are also used with many Arabic monosyllables containing followed by two consonants, the second of which is a front consonant: e.g. ('letter' acc.), ('war', nom. and acc.). Some combinations of consonants give rise to vowel insertion, and in these cases the epenthetic vowel may also be front vowel: e.g. ('time') and ('time' acc.) from waqt; ('idea') and (acc.) from fikr.
There is a tendency to eliminate these exceptional consonantal effects and to apply vowel harmony more regularly, especially for frequent words and those whose foreign origin is not apparent. For example, the words ('comfort') and ('art') take back-vowel suffixes, even though they derive from Arabic tāʼ marbūṭah.
Word-accent
Turkish words are said to have an accent on one syllable of the word. In most words the accent comes on the last syllable of the word, but there are some words, such as place names, foreign borrowings, words containing certain suffixes, and certain adverbs, where the accent comes earlier in the word.
A phonetic study by shows that when a word has non-final accent, e.g. ('not to dip'), the accented syllable is higher in pitch than the following ones; it may also have slightly greater intensity (i.e. be louder) than an unaccented syllable in the same position. In longer words, such as ('you would not get angry'), the syllables preceding the accent can also be high pitched.
When the accent is final, as in ('to dip'), there is often a slight rise in pitch, but with some speakers there is no appreciable rise in pitch. The final syllable is also often more intense (louder) than the preceding one. Some scholars consider such words to be unaccented.
Stress or pitch?
Although most treatments of Turkish refer to the word-accent as "stress", some scholars consider it a kind of pitch accent. writes that stress in Turkish "is actually pitch accent rather than dynamic stress." An acoustic study agrees with this assessment, concluding that though duration and intensity of the accented syllable are significant, the most reliable cue to accent-location is the pitch of the vowel. In its word-accent, therefore, Turkish "bears a great similarity with other pitch-accent languages such as Japanese, Basque, and Serbo-Croatian". Similarly noting the difference in phonetic realisation between final and non-final accent, proposes that "Final accent in Turkish is not 'stress', but is formally a boundary tone." According to this analysis therefore, only words with non-final accent are accented, and all other words are accentless.
However, not all researchers agree with this conclusion. writes: "Finally stressed words do not behave like accentless words and there is no unequivocal evidence that the language has a pitch-accent system."
Pronunciation of the accent
A non-final accent is generally pronounced with a relatively high pitch followed by a fall in pitch on the following syllable. The syllables preceding the accent may either be slightly lower than the accented syllable or on a plateau with it. In words like ('with a word'), where the first and third syllable are louder than the second, it is nonetheless the second syllable which is considered to have the accent, because it is higher in pitch, and followed by a fall in pitch.
However, the accent can disappear in certain circumstances; for example, when the word is the second part of a compound, e.g. ('shepherd salad'), from , or ('Lithuania(n) restaurant'), from . In this case only the first word is accented.
If the accented vowel is final, it is often slightly higher in pitch than the preceding syllable; but in some contexts or with some speakers there is no rise in pitch.
Intonational tones
In addition to the accent on words, intonational tones can also be heard in Turkish. One of these is a rising boundary tone, which is a sharp rise in pitch frequently heard at the end of a phrase, especially on the last syllable of the topic of a sentence. The phrase ↑ ('after that,...'), for example, is often pronounced with a rising boundary tone on the last syllable (indicated here by an arrow).
Another intonational tone, heard in yes–no questions, is a high tone or intonational pitch-accent on the syllable before the particle , e.g. ('Are these apples fresh?'). This tone tends to be much higher in pitch than the normal word-accent.
A raised pitch is also used in Turkish to indicate focus (the word containing the important information being conveyed to the listener). "Intonation ... may override lexical pitch in Turkish".
Final accent
As stated above, word-final accent is the usual pattern in Turkish:
('apple')
('houses')
When a non-preaccenting suffix is added, the accent moves to the suffix:
('apples')
('from the houses')
('my houses')
Non-final accent in Turkish words
Non-final accent in Turkish words is generally caused by the addition of certain suffixes to the word. Some of these (always of two syllables, such as -) are accented themselves; others put an accent on the syllable which precedes them.
Accented suffixes
These include the following:
(continuous): ('he is coming'), ('they were coming')
('by'): ('by coming')
('when'): ('when he comes')
('suddenly', 'quickly'): ('he will quickly go')
Note that since a focus word frequently precedes a verb (see below), causing any following accent to be neutralised, these accents on verbs can often not be heard.
Pre-accenting suffixes
Among the pre-accenting suffixes are:
(negative), e.g. ('don't be afraid!'), ('I did not come').
The pre-accenting is also seen in combination with : ('he/she/it does not come').
However, in the aorist tense the negative is stressed: ('it will never extinguish').
('with'): ('with anger, angrily')
('-ish'): ('Turkish')
('that which belongs to'): ('my one')
The following, though written separately, are pronounced as if pre-accenting suffixes, and the stress on the final syllable of the preceding word is more pronounced than usual:
('also', 'even'): ('even apples')
(interrogative): ('apples?')
Less commonly found pre-accenting suffixes are (during) and (without), e.g. (in the evening), (without coming).
Copular suffixes
Suffixes meaning 'is' or 'was' added to nouns, adjectives or participles, and which act like a copula, are pre-accenting:
('he/she/it was ill')
('they are children')
('it's Mustafa')
('if I am a student')
Copular suffixes are also pre-accenting when added to the following participles: future, aorist, and obligation:
('they would go')
('you used to hide yourself')
('I find')
('you go')
('they ought to go')
Often at the end of a sentence the verb is unaccented, with all the syllables on the same pitch.
Suffixes such as and are not pre-accenting if they are added directly to the verb stem:
('he/she/it went')
('if he goes')
This accentual pattern can disambiguate homographic words containing possessive suffixes or the plural suffix:
('it's me'), vs. ('my')
('they are children'), vs. ('children')
Compounds
Compound nouns are usually accented on the first element only. Any accent on the second element is lost:
('prime minister')
('capital city')
The same is true of compound and intensive adjectives:
('milk white')
('very blue')
Some compounds, however, are accented on the final, for example those of the form verb-verb or subject-verb:
('sleep-walker')
('lamb served on aubergine purée', lit. 'the sultan liked it')
Remaining compounds have Sezer-type accent on whole word.
Compound numerals are accented like one word or separately depending on speaker.
Other words with non-final accent
Certain adverbs take initial accent:
('where?'), ('where to?'), ('how?'), ('which?')
('tomorrow'), ('afterwards'), ('now'), ('again')
Certain adverbs ending in have penultimate accent unless they end in a cretic (– u x) rhythm, thus following the Sezer rule (see below):
('economically')
('by surety')
Some kinship terms are irregularly accented on the first syllable:
('mother'), ('maternal aunt'), ('paternal aunt'), ('maternal uncle'), ('paternal uncle'), ('brother/sister'), ('in-law')
Two accents in the same word
When two pre-accenting suffixes are added to a word with a non-final accent, only the first accent is pronounced:
('Turkish also')
('he was in Ankara')
However, the accent preceding the negative may take precedence over an earlier accent:
('needing to become Europeanised')
('needing not to become Europeanised')
In the following pair also, the accent shifts from the object to the position before the negative:
('Ali played cards')
('Ali didn't play cards')
However, even the negative suffix accent may disappear if the focus is elsewhere. Thus in sentences of the kind "not A but B", the element B is focussed, while A loses its accent. gives a pitch track of the following sentence, in which the only tone on the first word is a rising boundary tone on the last syllable :
('They weren't getting tired, they were having fun').
In the second word the highest pitch is on the syllable and the accent on the suffix almost entirely disappears.
Place names
Place names usually follow a different accentual pattern, known in the linguistics literature as "Sezer stress" (after the discoverer of the pattern, Engin Sezer). According to this rule, place names that have a heavy syllable (CVC) in the antepenultimate position, followed by a light syllable (CV) in penultimate position (that is, those ending with a cretic ¯ ˘ ¯ or dactylic ¯ ˘ ˘ rhythm), have a fixed antepenultimate stress:
,
Most other place names have a fixed penultimate stress:
Some exceptions to the Sezer stress rule have been noted:
(a) Many foreign place names, as well as some Turkish names of foreign origin, have fixed penultimate stress, even when they have cretic rhythm:
('England'), ('Mexico'), ('Belgium'), ('Europe')
('Scutari'), ('Pergamon')
But ('Moscow') has Sezer stress.
(b) Names ending in have antepenultimate stress:
,
(c) Names ending in and some others have regular final (unfixed) stress:
('India'), ('Bulgaria'), ('Mongolia'), ('Greece')
,
(but also )
(d) Names formed from common words which already have a fixed accent retain the accent in the same place:
(from 'milky')
(e) Compounds (other than those listed above) are generally accented on the first element:
, {{lang|tr|[[Kastamonu|Kastamonu}}
('Kandilli street'), ('the Black Sea')
(f) Other exceptions:
As with all other words, names which are accented on the penultimate or antepenultimate retain the stress in the same place even when pre-accenting suffixes are added, while those accented on the final syllable behave like other final-accented words:.
> ('from Ankara') > ('from Ankara?')
> ('from Işıklar') > ('from Işıklar?')
Personal names
Turkish personal names, unlike place names, have final accent:
.
When the speaker is calling someone by their name, the accent may sometimes move up:
('Ahmet, come here!').
Ordinary words also have a different accent in the vocative:
('My teacher...!'), ('Sir!')
Some surnames have non-final stress:
, (compound)
Others have regular stress:
,
Foreign surnames tend to be accented on the penultimate syllable, regardless of the accent in the original language:
('Oedipus')
('Eisenhower'), ('Ptolemy'), ('Mendelssohn')
Foreign words
The majority of foreign words in Turkish, especially most of those from Arabic, have normal final stress:
('book'), ('world'), ('comfortable')
The same is true of some more recent borrowings from western languages:
('photocopy'), ('steamboat')
On the other hand, many other foreign words follow the Sezer rules. So words with a dactylic or cretic ending (¯ ˘ * ) often have antepenultimate accent:
('window'), ('scenery'), ('Chevrolet'), ('bedframe')
Those with other patterns accordingly have penultimate accent:
('restaurant'), ('workshop'), ('medal'), ('table'), ('bag')
('couch'), ('cinema'), ('lever'), ('chocolate')
('screwdriver'), ('college faculty'), ('jubilee'), ('newspaper').
Some have irregular stress, though still either penultimate or antepenultimate:
('negative'), ('one wonders')
('factory')
The accent on these last is not fixed, but moves to the end when non-preaccenting suffixes are added, e.g. ('steamboats'). However, words with non-final accent keep the accent in the same place, e.g. ('tables').
Phrase-accent
The accent in phrases where one noun qualifies another is exactly the same as that of compound nouns. That is, the first noun usually retains its accent, and the second one loses it:
('shepherd salad') (from )
('Lithuania(n) restaurant') (from )
Galata köprüsü ('the Galata bridge')
The same is true when an adjective or numeral qualifies a noun:
('the red bag') (from )
('a hundred years')
The same is also true of prepositional phrases:
('towards the door')
('after that')
('as on every occasion')
An indefinite object or focussed definite object followed by a positive verb is also accented exactly like a compound, with an accent on the object only, not the verb:
('they telephoned')
('I have (lit. feed) a dog'), with deaccentuation of .
Focus accent
Focus also plays a part in the accentuation of subject and verb. Thus in the first sentence below, the focus (the important information which the speaker wishes to communicate) is on "a man", and only the first word has an accent while the verb is accentless; in the second sentence the focus is on "came", which has the stronger accent:
('a man came')
('the man came')
When there are several elements in a Turkish sentence, the focussed word is often placed before the verb and has the strongest accent:.
. ('My father came from Ankara yesterday')
. ('My father came from Ankara yesterday')
For the same reason, a question-word such as ('who?') is placed immediately before the verb:
('Who will solve this question?')
See also
Turkish alphabet
Turkish grammar
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Inkelas, Sharon. (1994). Exceptional stress-attracting suffixes in Turkish: Representations vs. the grammar.
Kaisse, Ellen. (1985). Some theoretical consequences of stress rules in Turkish. In W. Eilfort, P. Kroeber et al. (Eds.), Papers from the general session of the Twenty-first regional meeting (pp. 199–209). Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society.
Lees, Robert. (1961). The phonology of Modern Standard Turkish. Indiana University publications: Uralic and Altaic series (Vol. 6). Indiana University Publications.
Lightner, Theodore. (1978). The main stress rule in Turkish. In M. A. Jazayery, E. Polomé et al. (Eds.), Linguistic and literary studies in honor of Archibald Hill (Vol. 2, pp. 267–270). The Hague: Mouton.
Swift, Lloyd B. (1963). A reference grammar of Modern Turkish''. Indiana University publications: Uralic and Altaic series (Vol. 19). Bloomington: Indiana University Publications.
External links
Forvo pronouncing dictionary of Turkish words.
Turkish language
Turkic phonologies